PittMoss business grows like rolling stone (Video)

When Mont Handley moved into his first apartment following his graduation from Purdue University, his mother gave him a food processor.

"I thought what am I going to do with this," he recalled. "I was used to eating Ramen noodles. There was no way I was going to be cooking anything involving a food processor."

But after reading about the devastating effects peat-moss harvesting can have on the environment, he began to experiment with the appliance, cooking up his own sustainable alternative.

Over the next few decades, Handley kept working on the side project and today, he has turned what started as a kitchen experiment into PittMoss Development Co.

"This was something I had been thinking about and working on for a long time," he said. "I came to the point where I had to make a go of it," he said.

In March, Handley, who was working as national sales director at VisionPittsburgh, quit his job, cashed in his 401(k) and started to focus on PittMoss full time.

PittMoss, made from a mix of organic additives and recycled paper, is an economical and sustainable alternative to replace the traditional use of peat moss in horticulture. Each year, the U.S. imports 1.1 million tons of Canadian Sphagnum peat moss for use in greenhouses, nurseries and home gardens, Handley said.

"Peat lands around the world only make up 3 percent of the earth's tertiary surface, but they sequester 30 percent of all known soil carbons," he said. "Meter-for-meter the impact is far more significant than forest sequestration, and for what, so that we can have houseplants."

Not only does the use of peat hurt the environment, Handley says it has a big impact on growers' bottom lines.

Steve Guffey, fourth-generation owner of Johnston the Florist and Greenhouses, said growers pay anywhere from $400 to $800 per ton of peat depending on the amount they order, and if there isn't something to export back to Canada on the return trip, an additional freight charge can more than double the price.

With PittMoss, Handley said they can save at least 20 percent to 30 percent of their cost.

"This is going to be a godsend to every horticulturist in the nation," Guffey said. "It is going to lower the cost of their soil media, it's not wasting the fuel of importing for Canada by freight, and it reduces the amount of pulp going into our landfills."

Guffey, who operates the family business with his brothers Andy and Mark, is growing this year's crop of poinsettias, which the family has been growing since 1898, in a PittMoss mix. With the peat substitute, Guffey said he is using less chemicals to keep the plants healthy and is seeing less weeds, since the weeds that grow in his greenhouse largely come from the imported peat.

Another benefit is that the Guffey's have the PittMoss team on site. In January, Handley signed a lease with the family, to rent greenhouse space at their North Huntingdon facility and set up the full-scale PittMoss production.

The newspaper, which PittMoss gets from Atlas Recycling in the South Side, is fed through a Hammermill shredder and then processed through the mixer where Matt Knapp, operations direction serves as the paper brewmaster, making sure the mix is just right.

Handley helped fund the custom-build production line with a Transformation Fellowship grant he received from Idea Foundry in December.

Michael Matesic, CEO of Idea Foundry, said the organization was interested in helping more social enterprise businesses, and PittMoss fit perfectly.

"We were seeing there was a lot of money for technology and robots, but we needed a new class of investors," he said.

Matesic said they learned from companies like Pittsburgh-based Thread how social enterprises can be both traditionally funded and attract new types of investors.

Since ramping up production in August, PittMoss has been focusing its sales on growers in western Pennsylvania and eastern Ohio, in addition to sending out samples nationally.

Recently they sent a sample to Costa Farms in North Carolina and Miami, the largest tropical plant grower in the country.

Vince Angellotto, a part owner in the business and sales director, said when he talks to potential customers, they not only appreciate the cost savings, they see the bigger picture impact switching could have on the environment.

"We know this is going to be a slow sales cycle that could take four to six months for customers to grow their products in the sample soil," Handley said. "But in the end these could be customers for years or even generations."

While they can produce about a ton of PittMoss in one eight-hour day, Handley is hoping to get the financing together to buy new equipment that can produce 10 tons per hour.

"A lot of people thought quitting my job and cashing out my 401(k) was crazy," he said. "But I was looking for ways to put holes in this idea, but I just couldn't find them. This was something we needed to do."

And yes, Handley still has the food processor. It sits on a shelf in the greenhouse, next to his new, full-scale production equipment.